I agree with Todd. 35 years is more than enough and Ian, you should shave your ass. You definitely wanna get all pretty for your prison mates. Enjoy yourself!
And what he did was not barbaric? Could you come to terms with this if you one of his victims (or related to the victim)? Imo, death penalty should definitely be there for certain cases.
Of course what he did was barbaric. But I do not support the death penalty under any circumstances. The US has a history of executing the innocent and the mentally retarded and the only way to prevent such miscarriages of justice is to abolish capital punishment. Plus, it's not a deterrent at all.
^ So you just let this Ian Watkins case and others like it go? It's hard for me to accept that on a humane level.
So who the fuck determines whether or not someone lives? You think it's possible that maybe, just maybe, a judge and jury can get it wrong? Then what? Does the judge who sentanced the person to death get tried for murder? No. The whole point of killing someone is you're taking that decision in to your own hands which is the worst thing you could possibly do and something no person should be given the right to. Besides, you kill him and you're giving him an easy way out. In prison he will age and fester and be miserable. He has his entire life to stew in what he's done.
I'm not gonna throw down on the death penalty argument but I definitely think a life sentence should have been put down here. Or at least no chance of parole during his 35. I was ok hearing 35 until I heard he had a chance of parole.
He must still serve a minimum of two thirds of his sentance. Basically he's inside for at least around 23 years.
Im not saying let him free. He deserves every minute of jail time he got. In the US, he might have gotten life for his crimes and I'd be perfectly OK with that.
I said in cases like this where there is an insane amount of evidence I'd prefer the criminal be subjected to death penalty. That to me is the ultimate punishment. You might feel that's the 'easy way out' but I don't. Plus you're not even taking the family/victim's perspective into account. I bet many victims of sexual abuse/murder and their kins would find closure in seeing their attacker being given death penalty.
The possibility of him being released after 35 years doesn't bother me that much honestly. The point is, he will in all cases rot in prison for a very long amount of time, and he sure deserves it. I guess life sentence would have fitted too, but nevermind. Generally-speaking, I have a problem when mass murderers or totally psychopatic killers aren't given a life sentence, because them being free could lead to the death of a lot of other innocent people. In this case, I don't think Watkins being free in 30 years will cause any damage. He will probably be miserable at that time, regretting those sick things he did. Though there's still the risk that a long emprisonment time turns him into a worse person than he is now, still making him a danger for society even in 30 years from now.
I'm glad he got sent away for a long time, the whole thing is crazy. The mothers involved got 14 years and 17 years as well, just in case anyone was wondering. I agree with Todd about the whole death sentence thing as well, in fact Rou from Enter Shikari posted a quite interesting blog about what happened a few weeks back and made some good points in regards to peoples reactions to the whole thing. A large amount of people I've noticed posting online about this have gone straight to the "kill him," "should be shot," etc etc, and I find it to be amazing that so many people have jumped to that conclusion, though I wonder if it's just because they know he wouldn't be killed, or because sitting down in your living room (or wherever) typing on a computer is completely different to actually giving the order to have someone killed. Killing the criminal doesn't erase the crime, and personally I think there's far too many negatives to the death penalty and no positives.
According to me, 35 years are an accurate punishment. And if someone doesn't agree, I think he can't quite picture what an amount of time that is. I'm 21 years old. That means he's going to spent in prison my whole life plus 14 years (probably). When I was 10, I stayed in a hospital for 2 weeks. I was alone and couldn't leave my room. In a way, I was locked up in a single room and whoever came to visit me couldn't see me in person, so I wouldn't infect them. That was 2 weeks in the hospital. So I can't even imagine what it's like to be imprisoned for a year and fucking 35 years are beyond my imagination. It may not seem like it, but 35 years are a life sentence. And regarding the death penalty talk, imagine that the guilty one is someone you love. Your father, your son. All of a sudden, it wouldn't be so easy to send him to his death. It's easy to talk about people we know nothing about, we don't care about.
The family in this case actually also raped the child, so in this case the family is part of the crime. I get where you are coming from and understand how you feel. I would say he should be prisoned for life but i am against death penality. - Besides TRUST ME this is a british prison, he will be raped, looked down on and maybe even killed by other prisoners. Pedophilia is looked down upon, even in prison. In this case it is much worse for him to go to prison than just to be shot.
If I were the victim or their family, I'd be happy knowing he's in jail and not able to hurt anybody else. Killing him would do nothing for me.
He's gonna spend 35 years getting raped anally. Good. I'd personally choose death over that, so I'm glad he didn't get that easy option.
I used to be a firm believer in the death penalty, but that's not the case anymore. From what I've read, there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that capital punishment deters crime in any way. You have to approach these issues logically and leave your emotions out of it. That might not satisfy the victims' families, but what will? Punishing barbarism with further barbarism doesn't seem like the appropriate response for a civilized society.
Great post. It's sad to know that the U.S. have to be called along with countries such as China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Somalia in the top ten of the number of executions.
I agree. I think it's morally wrong as well as kind of pointless. Also, how are people supposed to pay for their crimes if they're dead? Death is an escape, not a prison. I just can't support the death penalty, even for murders as it is contradictory to kill someone for killing. They should be locked up in jail for the rest of their lives and psychoanalyzed. Psychological health benefits could arise from analyzing this guy and trying to prevent this kind of shit from even happening. And apparently this fucker had 27 TB (HOW?) of CP on his HDD. Absolutely disgusting. http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/r-v-watkins-and-others.pdf a nauseating read. ugh.
Actually I am taking the family/victim's perspective in to account and feel that they are the last people who should be held accountable over someone's punishment sentance. In the heat of things people will say and do things they don't understand the severity of, or cannot appropriately comprehend because they are being overwhelmed by their emotions.